Help Baboon Matters help Baboons!

Help Baboon Matters help baboons – Report April 2026 

We are absolutely brimming with excitement!  After a long hard year battling with an aging vehicle who had more heart than spare parts, we have been donated funds and support to purchase our first ever Baboon Matters Trust vehicle!

This weekend alone illustrated the need for emergency help as yet another baboon was critically injured by a car.  The poor lad suffered terrible wounds and was humanely euthanized, but his dreadful injuries and tragic death once again highlights the need for emergency help for baboons.

I get far too many calls about baboons hit and injured on the roads and while I know I won’t be able to get to help each and every baboon in need,  I do believe that setting up effective communications and systems will go a long way to easing the suffering of wildlife as will our new working vehicle when it is equipped with all necessary gear.

The new vehicle is such an important step in helping us reach more baboons and provide care to those in need.  It will also enable us to start work on our Population Estimation project and we will be giving you updates of where we find baboons and how our national map fills up with observations.

I am also delighted to report that our continued work in getting injured juvenile baboons back to their troops is proving successful and I was overjoyed when we were able to successfully release a beautiful young 5 month old little boy baboon back to his troop.  We are not sure what happened to his mom, but the young baboon was found alone and taken into care and I was called in to help.  We had a very good working relationship with the conservation bodies in that area and were all very pleased when we managed to find the troop in that remote, very mountainous, region so that we could get the juvenile to the troop.

The return took place in the middle of the recent blazing heat wave and although I was near to dehydration as I sat watch, keeping an eye of the troop from afar until the little boy was brought to the area to rejoin his troop, the heat and exhaustion were well worth it when the adult female baboons ran in and collected the juvenile and quickly took him up the mountain to safety.  It was a wonderful outcome and I am so very pleased that the lad has a chance to live out his best baboon life in the wild.

We cannot do any of our important work without your help, and although we are all deeply troubled by the international crises and war, we cannot overlook the need of animals who also need our attention and help and appeal to you to continue your kind contributions.

Thank you for supporting our efforts and I look forward to showing you our new vehicle in the next report! 

Towards the end of 2024, the local authorities and City of Cape Town were adamant that they would no longer fund the Urban Baboon Program, whereby rangers are employed to keep baboons out of urban areas on the Cape peninsula.  

At the end of 2024, our Court case was resolved when we obtained a court order in which all relevant authorities (Cape Nature, CoCT and SANparks – known as the JTT) admitted responsibility for the management of baboons and undertook to implement the mitigation strategies outlined in our application and rangers were reemployed under a new service provider.

Although we felt we had won that battle, the next battle was very quickly upon us; the Draft Baboon Strategic Management plan had been adopted and in that plan the JTT had announced their intention to remove troops of baboons.  There was no mention or discussion about NOT removing the baboons, only HOW they would be removed – the options included culling entire troops, relocating the troops or moving them to a sanctuary which would have to be established and then they announcement came that it was 4 troops of baboons - 121 animals to be removed.

Baboon Matters and our colleagues at Beauty Without Cruelty SA, Baboon Watch WC, Baboons of The South, Baboon Management WC and Green Group Simons Town launched a successful campaign “No to Killing – Yes to Solutions” and led an extremely well attended protest, submitted our memorandum to the JTT and encouraged hundreds of baboon advocates to make their voices heard in the public participation process by sending their written concerns to the JTT.

The final Action Plan for the management of baboons has, in the past week, been released to the public and we can see that implementation of the mitigation strategies will be provided for over the next two years, including  provision for better waste management a specific new By-Law and enforcement thereof.  

It appears that the option of culling entire troops in no longer being considered but that a sanctuary option is a possibility and if permits are issued the Seaforth troop will be moved in February 2027.  The idea of moving the free roaming troops into a sanctuary has been a hard one to consider, however, after meeting with the Cape baboon Partnership (CBP) I can see why the sanctuary initiative is  the only viable option for these troops, who are on a knife edge with culling as the only alternative.

I believe that the intention is to create a “world class” sanctuary that will take into account aspects of the baboons health and wellbeing and that should the troop settle down well and the sanctuary show signs of being sustainable, then more land would be made available.  We have requested the final, full proposal for the sanctuary but at this stage feel hopeful that it may provide a safe, secure alternative for these baboons.

On a wider picture, Baboon Matters has continued to provide help for injured or ill baboons and are pleased to note our successes in returning two juveniles back to their natal troop and ensuring that infants and juveniles reached safe rehabilitation centers or troops by working closely with colleagues. Sadly we have also had to ensure that critically ill baboons were humanely euthanased and we were relieved that in those case the baboons did not suffer prolonged suffering before they died.

We have supported community based initiatives to ensure that proactive management strategies are in place to minimize baboon human conflicts and have participated in a wide variety of meetings and are actively participating on the national Wildlife Well Being Forum – Task Team for Primates.

We continue to engage with the general public, providing education and information and our Facebook page has enjoyed high levels of success reaching just under one million viewers this year.  We have recently started making podcasts and hope you will take time to listen in as we debate the future of the Cape peninsula baboons.

Podcast link From Facebook:

Episode 1 - Should baboons be killed as a management tool? Assoc. Prof. Elisa Galgut, Ryno Engelbrecht (Baboon Management WC), and Jenni Trethowan (Baboon Matters) unpack the ethics and implications of proposals to cull or remove entire troops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAPJCb0UuXE

Episode 2 – Do the Guidelines Really Protect Baboons?

How effective are current management guidelines? Lorraine Holloway (Baboons of the South) and Ryno Engelbrecht and Jenni Trethowan examine the real impacts of removals on baboons, questioning whether the guidelines are applied judiciously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzYB8JWgJy0

Join the conversation. Share your thoughts. Because Baboons Matter: Their future is in our hands.

Baboon Matters could not do the important and varied work we do without your continued support and we are so grateful to you for your financial contributions that enable us to keel helping baboons.

Thank you for all of your contributions in 2025 and we look forward to a successful 2026!